


Universal Wolf

by Chimerari



Category: The Borgias
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chimerari/pseuds/Chimerari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>coda to s2x5 'The Choice'. How does Cesare react to Micheletto having had a male lover</p>
            </blockquote>





	Universal Wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [贪狼](https://archiveofourown.org/works/595992) by [styx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/styx/pseuds/styx)



‘Where were you?’

‘Hidden away inside the Sforza castle, Your Eminence.’

‘No, you were not.’ Cesare tags off the travelling cloak, almost ripping his undershirt in the process. ‘You didn’t show up until I reached the city gates.’

Micheletto remains silent, his eyes downcast.

‘My trust can be earned, and so can it be lost. I ask you again: where, were, you?’

‘At the cemetery, Your Eminence.’

‘To honour the memories of your ancestors, no doubt.’ Cesare whirls around. His favourite dagger presses precariously close. Micheletto stays put, breathing in shallow puffs to avoid cutting himself. ‘Next, you’re going to tell me this was from an encounter with a spirit. A vengeful one, by the looks of it.’

Micheletto belatedly remembers the sting of Augustino’s teeth sinking into the side of his neck, and how he kissed the same spot after. He fights the urge to shield the mark from view. Instead Micheletto makes quick work of his tunic, loosening the knots with steady fingers.

‘Whip me then, Your Eminence.’

‘You’d rather bleed than be forthcoming with the truth.’ Cesare laughs, a grating sound. Micheletto braces himself for a blow, only to be met with silence. Eventually he makes himself meet Cesare’s dark eyes, eyes that storm and war.

‘Leave.’

Micheletto’s heart sinks. Cesare’s rage is terrible to behold, but his vengeance is something far more imaginative.

Besides, Micheletto is not the only hound in the Cardinal’s service.

 

 

The ride to Forli takes at least a night and a day. Micheletto makes it just before dawn, the ground still damp with dew. His horse collapses in a quivering heap by the fountain. He’s off before the poor beast whines out its last breath.

Augustino looks more dazed than surprised. Micheletto cuts in before he opens his mouth.

‘You have to go.’

Augustino gawps, clearly failing to comprehend. Micheletto slams a hand to the door frame.

‘Take your woman with you if you must, but be gone by sun down.’

‘Why?’

Micheletto shakes his head. ‘I cannot say. But by all that is holy, go. Get away from here.’ He turns to leave. Augustino grabs for him, clutching his arm in an iron grip.

‘Will we meet again?’

Micheletto drags the corners of his mouth up. The scar twists his expression into a grimace.

It’s hard to say who moves first; Augustino dragging him closer or he clawing the back of Augustino’s neck, winding those sleep-warm curls around his fingers. They bite into each other’s mouth, their teeth clanking but neither bothers to slow down.

Growing up, they’ve shared many kisses: chaste ones on the corner of the other’s mouth; clumsy ones ruined by giggling; long, drawn out ones, keening deep in their throats. Kisses that tasted of cheap ale, rain, sweat, summer berries and winter snow, and lately, rotten lilies in open graves.

This one tastes like ashes and ruins.

Micheletto licks Augustino’s lower lip, sucking on the familiar curve one more time before he presses a hand to that chest and pushes.

‘Now go. Do not delay, not for one moment.’

Augustino reaches out, his fingers closing around nothing. Micheletto’s retreating back already gone.

He drops the hand. A cry dies at the tip of his tongue.

 

 

When Micheletto gets back, he falls into bed fully clothed, and sleeps the sleep of the righteous.

Or as a man already dead.

 

 

Cesare sucks on a thumb shiny with grease. A low noise of appreciation rumbles in his chest. He may have been born into wealth, but he has the ravenousness of a young wolf: for food, for power, for bloodshed. It’s a side of him he never bothers to hide, especially not from Micheletto.

‘A white dove brought me an intriguing message this morning,’ he murmurs, seemingly to himself, while he scrapes the flesh of an orange off its golden skin.

Micheletto waits; Cesare has a fondness for the dramatic.

‘A message concerning a certain friend of yours.’ Cesare wipes his hands on a silk handkerchief, twisting the fabric to reach between the digits. ‘Will you draw your sword on me, Micheletto, if I tell you an unfortunate accident has befallen the couple?’

Micheletto stops breathing for a moment, his vision swimming---

\---Augustino, beautiful, honourable Augustino. Augustino who longs for a family of smiling children, who is quick to anger but quicker to forgive, who’s always gentle in the way only a giant can be.

‘No,’ he croaks out. Blood wells up behind that one syllable.

‘No?’ Cesare stands and strolls to the window, his back carelessly turned. ‘You were close, were you not?’

‘Your Eminence,’ Micheletto interrupts, fingernails cutting into the meat of his palms. ‘May I be excused?’

‘Why, not feeling well, Micheletto?’ Cesare huffs out a laugh. ‘Do not fret. Your Augustino and his lovely bride are quite well. So well, in fact, he nearly took my messenger’s head off.’

Micheletto drops a shaking hand to the back of a chair. ‘If this is Your Eminence’s idea of a joke---’

‘Oh no, that’s not the amusing part. The amusing part is, why did you have a habit of meeting your friend in a cemetery, in the dead of the night?’ Cesare yanks the heavy drapes shut, before turning around to pin Micheletto with a speculative look. ‘What were you trying to hide, Micheletto?’

He has no answer to that.

Cesare takes three strides towards the assassin. He puts a hand to the side of Micheletto’s neck, his thumb pressing down casually.

‘Only a sinner has the need for secrecy, wouldn’t you agree?’ He leans forward, placing his mouth as close to Micheletto’s ear as possible without touching. The other man tenses ever so slightly.

‘Tell me.’ Cesare grips the fine hair at Micheletto’s nape and shakes him once, hard. ‘Tell me all the sordid details of your crime.’

The air around them is thick with the cloying smell of incense, syrupy sweet. Micheletto inhales, his mouth gone dry.

‘We would… strip.’ He keeps his gaze forward, eyes unseeing. ‘Till we were both bare as the day we were born.’

Cesare chuckles. The sound so quiet it almost doesn’t carry through, a puff of breath upon goose-bumped flesh.

‘And?’

‘We’d kiss, slow at first, and touch. He has this scar on the wing of his left shoulder---fell off a horse when he was thirteen---like the dip on a ripe peach.’

‘What of the scars I gave you? Did he notice?’ Cesare’s hand slips further down, tracing one old welt.

‘He asked. I deflected the question.’

‘How?’

Micheletto lifts a finger, feeling bold, and strokes it across the angle of Cesare’s jaw, where the skin is softest. ‘He likes a bit of teeth, right here.’

Cesare hums. ‘Go on.’

‘I could feel it, his cock dragging along my belly, always so impatient to tumble us to the ground. But I didn’t want that, not yet, I wanted a taste of him in my mouth first.’

The thumb at Micheletto’s throat twitches. Cesare’s voice, when it comes out, turns smoother, deeper, honey over gravel.

‘Ah, fitting. Something his blushing bride would never do. No respectable woman would even dream of offering.’

‘It’s familiar.’ Micheletto allows his own eyes to drift shut. ‘To feel him swell upon my tongue. His skin tasted like sunshine and hay…’

_A shaky hand cradled the back of his head, pushing down at the same time as those hips snapped up. Tentative at first, getting harsher when he realized Micheletto wasn't choking or pulling back. The tip of his nose bumped into the curly trail of hair, and that was it. Augustino jerked, babbling out something unintelligible--a warning, or maybe a name._

‘Enough.’ Cesare cuts in. His tone betrays nothing. ‘Did you let him have you?’

‘No.’

‘Then perhaps, it was the other way round?’ Cesare pulls back slightly. His face is a perfect façade of mild curiosity. ‘What was it like? I have been told that it’s not dissimilar to when one lies with a woman.’

‘It’s like… jumping into a bath that’s too hot. Or plunging a knife into a living body for the very first time.’

Cesare’s breath hitches. His thumb rubbing back and forth as if to anchor himself as much as to hold Micheletto in place. ‘Is that so?’

Micheletto knows he’s remembering---how blood spills over like a caress, warm and intimate; how the victim’s breath whooshes out, helpless like one caught in the thrall of passion.

Cesare laughs again and abruptly lets go. Save a faint sheen of sweat at his temples, there is no evidence of the conversation that took place.

‘Since we’re in the mood for confessions.’ Cesare moves away. The satin of his cassock shimmers in the dim light, an array of crimson. ‘There is but one sin I would willingly admit.’

‘What might that be, Your Eminence?’ Micheletto schools his voice back to polite interest.

‘Greed.’ Cesare narrows his eyes, as if searching for some perfect expression. ‘I want,’ ---a flash of white teeth--- ‘everything.’ He turns, spreading his arms to an invisible audience of thousands.

‘Even things that are not mine to have.’

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the verse: Power into will, will into appetite/And appetite, an universal wolf  
> written in one go, sadly lacking any beta or historical research. I welcome criticism with open arms  
> [Tumblr me folks](http://rosengris.tumblr.com/)


End file.
